About Asian Pacific Post

Asian Pacific Post

The Asian Pacific Post is a weekly Canadian newspaper founded in 1993 in Vancouver, British Columbia, specializing in reporting Asian issues for the Asian-Canadian community — from the Chinese diaspora's homeland politics to the Filipino community's Canadian achievements, the full spectrum of Asian-Canadian life. With a readership of 160,000 and national distribution across eight metropolitan areas, it is one of Canada's leading ethnic newspapers — and the publisher of a dramatic press-freedom story: in January 2009, its printer refused to print an edition over a China-related article, holding the newspaper hostage and forcing a landmark confrontation over censorship, editorial independence, and the diaspora press's place between Beijing and its critics. The paper has a sister publication in The South Asian Post.

Overview

The Asian Pacific Post covers Asian-Canadian community news, developments in Asia (particularly China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, the Philippines, Korea, and South Asia), Canadian politics as they affect Asian Canadians, immigration, business, culture, and entertainment. Published from Vancouver — Canada's most Asian metropolis — the paper's distribution spans the country: Vancouver, Richmond, Calgary, Edmonton, Winnipeg, Toronto, North York, and Montreal, reflecting the national dispersal of the Asian-Canadian community. The readership of 160,000 makes it one of the largest ethnic newspapers in Canada. The paper's self-description as a Chinese newspaper reflects its core audience and founding mission, while its coverage, English-language accessibility, and national footprint serve the broader Asian diaspora — the communities within the community.

History

The newspaper was founded in 1993 in Vancouver, emerging from the transformation of British Columbia's demographics: the waves of Hong Kong immigration before the 1997 handover, the growing mainland Chinese community, the established Filipino, Korean, and South Asian populations. The need was clear: English-language journalism serving Asian Canadians' interests — covering the community's achievements and concerns, the homelands' developments, and the Canadian politics affecting immigrants — in the language bridging the diaspora's generations. Publisher Harbinder Singh Sewak built the paper into a significant community voice — one willing to report critically on all sides, including the Chinese government, the community's internal debates, and the tensions within diaspora politics, without fear or favour. That independence — the refusal to serve any faction's line — would define the paper's identity and precipitate its most dramatic test.

The paper won a Jack Webster Award for Excellence in Journalism — British Columbia's premier journalism honour, named for the legendary broadcaster — for Best Community Reporting in 2003, recognizing the quality of its community journalism against competition from across the province's media.

The 2009 Printing Dispute

The paper's defining moment came on January 8, 2009, when Frank Cui of the Epoch Printing Press — which also printed The Epoch Times, the Falun Gong-affiliated newspaper — attempted to stop the printing of the Asian Pacific Post over an article reporting that the Chinese government had accused the Divine Performing Arts (the classical Chinese dance company hosted by NTDTV, the Falun Gong-linked broadcaster) of being funded by Falun Gong practitioners. Cui refused to print the newspaper unless quotes from Chinese officials were removed — effectively demanding the paper censor its reporting to suit the printer's religious-political commitments. Publisher Sewak accused Falun Gong of suppressing his freedom of speech; the paper was forced to switch printers mid-production to get the edition out.

Epoch Press president Frank Cui — a Falun Gong practitioner — admitted to holding the paper, arguing that reporters shouldn't "balance" stories about Falun Gong with Chinese Communist Party criticisms: between victim and perpetrator, he said, there can never be neutrality or balance. Sewak's response became a press-freedom touchstone: "This is hypocrisy in slow motion... You can't complain about not having freedom of the press in China and then turn around and suppress the same freedoms in Canada." Sewak alleged unlawful interference with economic interests, including breach of contract and deceit; lawyers for Falun Dafa denied any association with Cui's actions. The story was covered by the South China Morning Post, The Vancouver Sun, and The Province — the local press recognizing the precedent at stake. Sewak took the Epoch Printing Press to court; the paper's lawyer called the case unique in Canada — "a commercial printer holding a newspaper hostage on the basis they don't like an article is a pretty strange set of facts" — with no comparable precedent found anywhere in the country. The dispute crystallized the diaspora press's dilemma: caught between Beijing's sensitivities and the exile movements' orthodoxies, with editorial independence the casualty both sides claimed to defend. For the Asian Pacific Post, the episode became a credential — proof that the paper's independence was not a slogan but a practice, defended at the cost of a disrupted production schedule, a forced printer change, and a lawsuit. In the years since, the paper has continued to navigate the diaspora's fault lines: the Hong Kong protests and the national security law, the Uyghur and Tibetan questions, the Taiwan tensions, the Canadian foreign-interference debates — each story testing the independence that 2009 established.

Coverage and Audience

The Post serves Asian Canadians — particularly in Metro Vancouver, home to Canada's largest Asian diaspora, where Richmond is majority-Asian and the Chinese, Filipino, Korean, and South Asian communities shape the region's character — with community news, homeland developments, Canadian politics, immigration information, business coverage, and cultural reporting. The audience spans the Chinese (the paper's core, including Hong Kong, mainland, and Taiwanese communities with their distinct politics), Filipino, South Asian, Korean, and Southeast Asian communities: immigrants navigating the Canadian system and Canadian-born generations maintaining their heritage, united by the paper's English-language accessibility and its community focus. The national distribution — Vancouver, Richmond, Calgary, Edmonton, Winnipeg, Toronto, North York, Montreal — follows the Asian-Canadian population's geography: the prairie cities' growing communities, Toronto's vast diaspora, Montreal's Asian neighbourhoods. The sister publication, The South Asian Post, extends the coverage to the South Asian community specifically — the Indian, Pakistani, Bangladeshi, and Sri Lankan diasporas with their own distinct concerns.

Ownership

The Asian Pacific Post is independently owned and published by Harbinder Singh Sewak — the publisher who defended the paper's editorial independence in the 2009 printing dispute, taking the principled stand that a free press in Canada must be free from every censor, not just Beijing's. The independent ownership has preserved the paper's willingness to report critically regardless of community pressures — the Hong Kong democrats and the Beijing loyalists, the Falun Gong practitioners and the Chinese officials, all covered with the same independent eye. In the ethnic press, where advertisers, community organizations, and homeland governments all exert pull, that independence is the rarest asset — and the Post's defining one.

Digital Presence

The paper publishes online at asianpacificpost.com, extending the weekly print edition with digital news serving the national distribution footprint — from Vancouver and Richmond to Toronto and Montreal. The website carries the community news, the homeland developments, and the cultural coverage to Asian Canadians wherever they live, including the smaller communities beyond the print distribution. For Asian Canadians, the Asian Pacific Post remains a community institution: the English-language paper that covers their communities, their homelands, and their place in Canada — and that proved, in January 2009, that it would defend its editorial independence against any pressure, from any direction. Three decades after its 1993 founding, it continues to report the Asian-Canadian story in the community's own voice — independent, critical, and unbowed since 1993.